Emirati women spend 60% of income on shopping

girl shopping and carrying bags in a retail store

RITIKA SHARMA / Emirates Business

Apart from their refined sense of style, Emirati women are known worldwide for their penchant for shopping. Testimony to this conception, a recent poll-survey conducted among women living in the UAE has revealed that one-third of Emirati women spend nearly 60 percent or more of their income on general shopping each month
The poll results also revealed that Emirati women are spending 43 percent of their earned money particularly on ‘fashion shopping’.
These figures have been revealed in the poll-survey that was conducted by Shedd fashion marketplace app, aimed at offering insights into spending habits of UAE women across the Emirates.
Fadeelah Al-horaibi, Business Development Manager at Shedd, said, “We commissioned the survey to help us identify key behaviours of UAE fashion shoppers, giving us valuable insights into how much ladies in
the country love to shop and their
attitudes towards it.”
As per the survey, the residents of the Abu Dhabi were found to spend the largest percentage of their income on shopping, with almost one in five women spending 40 percent of their income or more on shopping each month, compared to 9 percent of Dubai shoppers.
“Abu Dhabi’s higher spending may be due to a number of reasons. The capital has a higher proportion of Emirati residents compared to Dubai and a recent study states that that 20 percent of Emiratis claim they visit a mall more than five times a week, this equates to a lot of shopping,” said Fadeelah.
Highlighting differing attitudes to spending among diverse nationalities, the survey results show that almost a third of Emirati women polled (27 percent) spend 60 percent of their income or more on shopping each month, compared to just 3 percent of Westerners and Asians who spend the same proportion.
“Although UAE expatriates tend to earn higher salaries than they would in their respective home countries, it seems their cultural attitudes towards spending remain the same despite living outside of their homeland. For example, Emiratis may view shopping as more of a leisure activity, whereas other nationalities polled seemed more cautious with how much they spend on shopping,” Fadeelah added.
The survey also reveals how open UAE women of different ages and nationalities are about their shopping habits and what proportion of their income they tend to spend on fashion shopping.
The results revealed that one in five Emirati women keep their shopping habits private almost every time they shop and that a staggering 42 percent of women in the UAE tend to keep their shopping habits private. Among all, westerners seem to be the proudest of their shopping habits; with 65% of Western women polled claiming they almost never keep their shopping habits private

Spending attitudes:
Aside from the differences in shopping habits across nationalities, the survey also discovered spending attitudes according to the age of respondents. For example, only 11 percent of women in the UAE age 40 and above spend over 40 percent of their total income on fashion shopping, compared to almost one in five women aged 25-29.
“The UAE’s love for shopping shows no sign of relenting and the overall Middle East retail sector (both online and in-store) is expected to grow from approximately US$996 billion last year to almost US$1.05 trillion in 2016. At Shedd, we support irresponsible shopping and we encourage UAE women to buy fashion items they love, because they can then sell their pre-loved items via Shedd, effectively making money from their past irresponsible shopping.” Fadeelah concludes.

Infographic (Update 30Mar)

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